Cheney 'put pressure on CIA' to back his opinions

By David Rennie in Washington

12:01AM BST 06 Jun 2003

A war of words in Washington over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction deepened yesterday.

Unnamed sources accused senior Pentagon officials of treating intelligence analysts with "contempt", and accused Dick Cheney, the vice-president, of pressuring the CIA to tailor its output to fit his hawkish view of the world.

The latest round of leaks came a day after the Pentagon staged its own public relations offensive, ridiculing claims that it had set up a secret intelligence cell in competition with the CIA, or pressured analysts to come up with reasons to go to war.

An unnamed senior CIA official told the Washington Post that Mr Cheney paid "multiple" visits to the agency's headquarters over the past year, leaving some analysts with the feeling they were being pressured to find evidence of banned weapons in Iraq, or links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'eda.

Other serving and retired defence officials alleged that, starting on the very day of the September 11 attacks, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, "browbeat" intelligence analysts into investigating claims that Iraq was involved.